After yet another disappointing draw, Valencia find themselves fighting to stay in the cup, hoping to overturn a 1-2 loss at Gijon. In usual circumstances, that would be an easy task, but given the team's travails this season, all bets are off. When the draw was made it was expected that Valencia would have won by 1 or 2 goals in the first leg and been able to experiment and rest players. Instead, it's win or bust and therefore a near first team line-up should be expected.
Transfer news is that Uroš Račić has joined Tenerife of the second division on loan. His time with us has been very limited and NickVCF in the comments has rightly asked what the point is. We can bring in these young prospects, but if their time in the first team is limited to a late sub appearance in the cup before they're sold for a miserable profit at best, it seems worthless. We did identify a young talent a few seasons back. His name was Rodrigo De Paul. We sold him for a dismal 3 million and now he's being targeted by several clubs for 30-35 million. Sure, it's not a total disaster for Valencia, since we'll get at least 10% of that but in hindsight, it would have been better to keep him.
Batshuayi's exit looks imminent with Monaco remaining the likely destination, though late interest from Everton and Galatasaray may change that. Not our business really, since he's been a bust. A fourth striker seems almost certain, though with funds very limited the options are underwhelming. Chicarito was being touted as the likely possibility last week but high demands from West Ham have made that less likely.
Transfer news is that Uroš Račić has joined Tenerife of the second division on loan. His time with us has been very limited and NickVCF in the comments has rightly asked what the point is. We can bring in these young prospects, but if their time in the first team is limited to a late sub appearance in the cup before they're sold for a miserable profit at best, it seems worthless. We did identify a young talent a few seasons back. His name was Rodrigo De Paul. We sold him for a dismal 3 million and now he's being targeted by several clubs for 30-35 million. Sure, it's not a total disaster for Valencia, since we'll get at least 10% of that but in hindsight, it would have been better to keep him.
Batshuayi's exit looks imminent with Monaco remaining the likely destination, though late interest from Everton and Galatasaray may change that. Not our business really, since he's been a bust. A fourth striker seems almost certain, though with funds very limited the options are underwhelming. Chicarito was being touted as the likely possibility last week but high demands from West Ham have made that less likely.
The name currently in vogue is Sergio Leon, who has been a back-up for Betis after decent spells elsewhere including Osasuna. Like Gameiro and Chicarito, this is one I think comes at least 3 years too late. Leon was a good player a few seasons back but I have my doubts he'd significantly improve things up front. In hindsight, we should have got 40-50m for Rodrigo last summer and spent that on Maxi Gomez of Celta. I said that last summer in the comments. However, that boat has sailed, Rodrigo's nominal value has dropped to 25-30m at best, while Gomez's has soared and there's close on zero chance that he will join us. Other options are limited. If we had the money, Borja Iglesias, another of our former youth players who we let leave on a free enjoyed good seasons with Celta B at the third level, Zaragoza last year at the second level and has made the step up with Espanyol, averaging nearly a goal every two games. But, at 25 million (release clause) for a player that has only has one good season in the top flight it would be a gamble.
EDIT: So a 3-0 victory over Sporting Gijon to lift up everyone's spirits, it was a dominant performance in the second half, which unfortunately due to work is the only half that I watched and we managed to turn that domination into goals, what a surprise.
This is what we need, this is how we should play all the time and this is how many goals we should score. I mean at one point it seemed like this would end in yet another draw and we would be out of the cup due to losing the first leg, but we scored the first goal and after that it was smooth sailing with two more goals coming along.